Carlos Wrzniewski vs the Walking Dead, Part 2
by David N. Brown
Summary: The walking dead are rampaging through the Australian desert. Can Carlos, the heroic Aborigine paleontologist, keep from being lunch? David N. Brown resides in Mesa, Arizona.
1. A surprising discovery

Carlos Wrzniewski v. the Walking Dead Pt. 2

**This is my third fan fic, others being "Aliens vs. Exotroopers" and "AliPuns" on the AVP page. This is, strictly speaking, a sequel to one of my original novels, but I think it can be appreciated as a fan fic for the Romero "Dead" films.**

**A surprising discovery**

The interior of Australia is one of the most inhospitable deserts on Earth. But not so long ago, it was green with grass and trees, and teeming with the most curious of game, from monitor lizards as big as bears to wombat-like creatures as big as rhinoceroces to still more exotic creatures like the bygone native "wolf". The aborigines' legends of the Dream Time give some recollections of this age, and to geologists, it is as a moment ago, like the fresh print in the mud of this morning's rain. And to the rocks themselves- who knows? Perhaps to whatever beings or forces guide the course of eons, the bygone age is like a fond, slumbering friend, while the reign of man is but an annoyance to be endured like an hour's drizzle.

Beneath the desert are many caves, worn in limestone by water. They are probably quite young, in the geological view of things, but old enough to hold bones of the creatures that roamed the bygone forests. Paleontologists, professional and amateur, search the caves for bones. So do less scrupulous duffers, who sell bones to whomever offers the best price, and the occasional outright vandal, who smash what they find for reasons known only to themselves.

Jeff Kettering stood in the grey area between amateur fossil collector and duffer. He had no formal training beyond a few college classes, and so could not claim paleontologist as a professional title. He frequently sold his finds, so he could not claim to be a paleontological volunteer. But, he was genuinely curious about fossils, and sincerely desired to cooperate with professionals in advancing the science of paleontology. He routinely told himself, as well as others, that if he ever made a find of genuine importance, he would gladly give it to a professional for study. He had as yet never been put to that test, as the most significant discoveries he had made so far were a 2000-year-old spear head and a dozen mid-1800s rimfire casings. But that would change within moments as he stepped into a small side chamber of one of the more isolated caves.

The thing against the cave wall was unquestionably dead, but looked like a fresh carcass. For that reason, he nearly turned away, but looked just long enough to take interest. It was the size of a dog, and at first glance looked just like a dog. Kettering leaned in for a closer look, and knew better, but took another look because it seemed too fantastic to be true. He saw the stout, straight tail, subtly unlike a dog's. He saw the stripes on its body. But he was not convinced until he counted the toes. He murmured as if enraptured: _"Thylacine."_

The thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian wolf, was a memorial to the cruelty of man, not to mention the stupidity of his governments. As far as could be determined by paleontologists, it vanished from the Australian mainland around the time of Christ. It lived in the southern island of Tasmania until settlers encountered it. Even then, it lived long enough to be despised as a killer of sheep. In the1800s and early 1900s, though it was known even then that more sheep were taken by dingoes and human thieves (the original "duffers") than by thylacines, bounties were paid for dead thylacines. Over 2,000 pounds in bounties (at one pound per adult pelt) were paid by the government alone. In 1936, the killing of thylacines was outlawed, and assigned a fine of $5,000. The law was passed three years after the last known thylacine was caught in the wild, and two months before said specimen died in the Hobart zoo. Sightings had continued for the following 140-plus years, however, and laws protecting it had never been revoked, presenting the conundrum that, if anyone ever killed a specimen to prove the survival of the species, he could conceivably be fined or arrested for killing a protected species.

Kettering stooped to pick up the carcass. The skin was soft, and the limbs moved; it was not mummified or even in rigor mortis. "This could have died only a few days ago," he said aloud. He realized immediately that this was a momentous find. He walked back the way he had come, almost in a daze, contemplating what to do.

Unfortunately, he did not look closely at the chamber. If he had looked at the floor where the carcass had lain, he would have noticed a substantial depression, matching the outline of the carcass, where limestone deposits had formed around the body. He would have realized that these deposits would have taken years to form, and might represent the passage of decades, centuries or even millennia since the thylacine had laid down to die. If he had looked at the walls, he would have seen badly faded paintings of the aborigines. He could have been forgiving for not knowing what the paintings meant, for even the grandfathers of the grandfathers of the eldest of the first aborigines to see white men had already forgotten it: They were sigils for holding back evil spirits.

Two hours later, as dusk fell, his four-wheel-drive car met another, more rugged vehicle on a dirt trail. The two men in the vehicle were brothers Leonard and Christopher Peterson. They were notorious as "duffers" of the traditional sort: They "recovered" stray sheep for a fee, and hunted as a sideline. The brothers got out. Kettering remained in his car, trembling. Leonard, the younger but more intelligent and charming of the two, walked up and tapped on the window. "What's this? You ask us to drive 70 kilometers, and now you won't get out of the car?"

Kettering rolled down his window. "I need some advice," he said. He leaned in and continued, "Is it true you can go to jail for killing a thylacine?"

Leonard politely raised an eyebrow. Christopher politely kept a straight face. The elder spoke first: "O-Kay, I can see which way this is going. Someone says he killed a thylacine, and knows someone who will be a reward for it, but can't take it in himself because he could be arrested, so he's offering to let you take it in and collect a reward, in exchange of course for small compensation. That right?"

Kettering shook his head. "I found a dead thylacine. A_ recently_ dead one."

Leonard pursed his lip. "Look, there's no need for pretenses. The thylacine was declared extinct by international conservationists almost a hundred years ago. If anyone were prosecuted for killing one, it would be an open-and-shut appeal. Anyway, the laws that were passed to protect it were specific to Tasmania, and we're hundreds of kilometers out ot that jurisdiction. But, seriously, who offered this thing? Did you already pay for it?"

"I told you, I found it. And it's in the boot."

"Well, we can take a look-see," Christopher said noncomittally. Kettering popped the trunk from inside, and got out toopen it the rest of the way. Just as he was reaching out, a five-toed paw thrust into the opening to send the trunk all the way open. Shouts and screams were heard but unheeded by the wildlife.

A half-hour later, the Peterson brothers hustled into their car. Christopher had a bandage on his hand, already soaked with blood. Kettering's car was concealed in a dry wash a hundred meters from the road. Not far from there, Kettering himself lay in a shallow grave. And in the dust, a trail of prints, with five toes on the front paws, wound into the desert wastes.


	2. Real boomerangs don't come back

"**Real Boomerangs don't come back"**

2 hours later...

The Peterson brothers reached a spot where the dirt track intersected a paved but still primitive road. On the left, the road went south; a sign showed, "To Willys Station." On the right, it turned northeast; a second sign showed, "To Barkly."

"Well," said Leonard, "which way do we go? Willys is closer, and I hear the new hospital there is the best between Darwin and Alice. But the nearest public hospital is the one in Barkly."

"Barkly," Christopher croaked without hesitation. "They'll ask fewer questions."

20 hours later...

Willys Station ("Willys" for short) was a loose-knit settlement of 657 in the arid but marginally habitable lands to the northeast of Alice Springs, and south of the Barkly Highway. Its historic livelihood was the raising of sheep and cattle, which still employed fifty people. Lately, mining had become the biggest business, and it now employed over a hundred people, many of them recent immigrants from Eastern Europe, Indonesia and the Phillipines who had received visas specifically for work in the mine. In the wake of the new arrivals, the settlement had become comparatively centralized. Almost 400 people, mainly miners and their families, lived in a development by the historic station homestead, which had been converted into a general store to supply their needs. In the wake of the influx of new workers, the settlement had also finally created its own school. This had been built 18 km from the town center, on the property of its teacher and headmaster, Carlos Wrzniewski.

No one was certain of Carlos's heritage, beyond the fact that he was part Aborigine and had at least one ancestor from Eastern Europe. His skin was black, though slightly lighter than many aborigines, and his nose was large, tall and hooked. His hair was curly, and had long since turned a gray-tinted silver. His own past was well-known. He was a doctor of paleontology and a former soldier. In his military career, he had served in the Serbo-Albanian War, where it was rumored he had fought in a battle that somehow ended the war in early 2047, and then in a war with Indonesia in 2054. As a paleontologist, he had spent more than a decade as one of the senior staff for the world's first time travel company, Naughtenny Moore Time Travel, Ltd. After retiring, he had moved to a vacated farm house in Willys Station, where he had lived for 6 years.

The school's main classroom was a low-slung barn, converted to seat 70 people. Carlos taught his lessons here. 35 students attended regularly, and 60 more received the lessons by webcast. 20 more children were taught in a purpose-built kindergarted and preschool, by an Alice Springs emigrant named Colleen Fitzhugh. At the moment, Carlos was wrapping up the lesson with "story time".

"...So I fall just bout three meters of the truck, and land roight on my bum. The tyrannosaur is leaning against the truck with 3 rounds in its chest, and it's not happy about it. I lift my head, and see the head coming down. It lets out this shriek, and blood sprays all over me. I get just enough time to raise my rifle and fire. Now, the .38 is nowhere near as powerful as the Eliminator or even an original H&H .600. But firing a bunch of shots semi-auto from a prone position is more than enough to beat the snot of ya. I don't stop shooting until the clip's empty, and I never know how many shots get fired. Between the flashes, the sound and the bloody recoil, I don't even see the tyrannosaur until it's over. It's dead, no question- but the hind legs are still kicking. The truck's the only thing that keeps it from trampling me. It finally twists around and falls- back.

"That was the scariest dinosaur I ran into. But the thing you need to understand is that it wasn't dangerous because it was big, or mean, or because it ate meat. It was dangerous because of where we were. We chose to go in there, looking for a _Tyrannosaurus bataar_ nest. We found it. That's why they attacked us. We could have stayed away, and they would have left us alone. But once we set foot on the nesting ground, nobody had any more choices. As far as they knew, we were there to kill their young, and the only way to stop us was to kill us first. That's why no animal- or person, for that matter- is more dangerous than one protecting its young." He checked his watch. "Well, I guess we're a little over. See you next time, kids." As class dismissed, and other children filed out, one student pushed forward. Carlos cracked a broad smile. It was 10-year-old Billy Weis, one of his most gifted pupils.

"Carlos, I brought something to show you," Billy said excitedly. He added bashfully, "I don't know if it's real." He reached into his book bag and took out a weathered piece of wood in the unmistakable shape of a boomerang. "I got this as a gift from my uncle, and he says he got it from an old blackfellow when he was young. He said it's a real boomerang. But when I throw it, it doesn't come back. Did I throw it wrong? Or is it not a real boomerang?"

Carlos chuckled. "Well, Billy, there's a bit of a misunderstanding about boomerangs. Lots of people, even blackfellows who haven't studied the old ways, think boomerangs come back when you throw them. But there's really two kinds of boomerangs. There are the original boomerangs that the old blackfellows used for hunting. Then there are the ones that come back. So, you might say this is a real one because it doesn't come back. It's a fine specimen, too. I've heard of ones not as food as this selling for hundreds of dollars.

" He took a closer look, and pointed to a stylized symbol carved in the wood, which happened to be identical to the one Kettering had overlooked in the thylacine cave.. "This wasn't just a hunting boomerang, though. Blackfellows also put their totems on boomerangs. Its pretty unusual to have a totem boomerang that's also well-built for throwing... could mean it's very old.

Might ask your uncle who it was he got it from."

Colleen arrived leading Billy's 4-year-old brother Tommy. Carlos and Billy went out the door together. "Carlos, could you throw a boomerang?" Billy asked.

Carlos chuckled again, somewhat ruefully. "Well, I can't say I've ever tried to learn. I know about them, and I've seen competitive events where blackfellows throw them. I got a boomerang once- turned out it wasn't even a hunting kind- and tried throwing it, and I couldn't hit a bloody thing except my stepfather's windscreen. 'Course, my mates in the army said I couldn't hit a thing shooting either."

Most of the children got onto a bus, bound for the company housing. Sixteen children, including Tommy and Billy, remained behind. They were the children of ranchers who had lived in Willys Station before the mining company arrived. Their parents' homes were scattered about, and mostly near the edges of the station lands. They were picked up by their parents. Carlos and Colleen entertained the children during the usually long waits for their parents. Today, the Weis boys ended up waiting more than two hours. It was nearly dusk when Joseph Weis pulled up in a flatbed van used for hauling sheep. Tommy was almost hysterical by then, and had to be restrained to keep from running to the van before it stopped. "Sorry, guys," Joseph said. "We had a hard time on the ranch today. If you can be patient, I want to talk to Dr. Wrzniewski. Why don't you look at the garden with Ms. Fitzhugh?" Colleen led the boys to a small tract Carlos used to grow vegetables.

"What is it?" Carlos said. Without a word, Weis held up a hand-held computer. Carlos immediately grew stern. The picture was of a sheep with its throat torn out and its body partially consumed. As he watched, there were more pictures of sheep in the same condition, seven in all. An eigth showed a dingo carcass, also with its throat torn out. The ninth was of a footprint with five toes. "You know what these mean," Carlos said.

Weis nodded. "Dingos and feral dogs don't normally go for the throat, and they have four toes on every paw. So far we're calling it the `unidentified predator'- we have orders not to call it anything else."

Carlos nodded. "Endangered species are bad for business- never mind ones that are supposed to be extinct."

"It's worse than that," Weis said. He continued, more quietly, "There is a rabies outbreak among my flock and my neighbor's. Between the two of us, we put down fifty sheep in the last 24 hours, and our entire flocks are under quarantine. It seems to be a previously unknown strain, which could mean a previously unknown carrier."

"Every kind of rabies we know about takes weeks to show symptoms," Carlos said. "Is this faster?"

Weis nodded. "I isolated a sheep that I saw bitten by another this morning. It displayed prodromal behavior within 13 hours. And it gets worse. My neighbor keeps cattle as well as sheep, and he put down a cow and a steer with rabies symptoms. He also sent at least one of his hands to the the WilCo infirmirary- no one will say what for, which I'd consider an answer in itself."

"And I suppose I don't need to ask if animal control has been called. Listen... do you think your boys will be safe?"

Weis smiled. "Hey, I'm allowed to carry more firepower than you are. If by any chance you have more..." Carlos just laughed.


	3. The dead walk!

**The opening passage is from an aborigine myth, authentic as far as I know. I have referenced it in an unfinished "Naughtenny Moore" story. On re-reading the source, I noticed a passage about the dead returning to life, and "tweaked" it to fit the present genre.**

"**The World is overturned, and the dead walk!"**

For Utdjungon is your deadly foe,

Watching alert for the time to spring.

'Tis only we who know the law

Who hold him there in the old sky track.

Without us none can hold him back.

Then as he springs, and all goes black,

This earth will shudder, the trees come down;

And over the noise you will hear our cry:

We'll cry for you as you pass away;

We'll LAUGH at you as you pass away.

Wadaman song

7 hours later...

Adoni Jackson was descended from "half-caste" Aborigines, but (perhaps for that reason) had been self-consciously raised in the old ways. This had made him exceptionally qualified for his current job as a ranch watchman. He reported directly not to any individual rancher, but to a corporation that managed their holdings and distributed their stock. He patrolled throughout the combined ranch territories, monitoring both human and animal activity. Tonight, he had orders to watch the northeastern ranges, for reasons known only to his superiors. He also had orders to shoot animals with signs of rabies, and to "shoot on sight" an "unclassified dog or dog-like animal."

Jackson used a motor bike to move about, but did his tracking and hunting on foot. He carried a semi-automatic .30-.06 rifle, the most powerful weapon that could be owned by private citizens in Australia, a 4.9 mm air rifle that he used more often, and a .45 double-barrel derringer. Thanks to his nation's extremely prohibitive gun laws, even this was an unusual arsenal. It had taken him 3 years to get a license to own the .30-.06 (the difficulties being exacerbated by the fact that he was barely literate), and only a signed letter from a federal lawman allowed him the derringer. He also carried a tablet computer with a camera, GPS and a real-time aerial map, something his employers needed far more than he did: He could navigate the desert better without it than most whitefellows could with it, but he needed the computer to translate his observations into data the whitefellows could use.

This evening, he had an additional piece of whitefellow equipment along: a pair of night vision goggles. They worked by amplifying visible light, and also registered infrared. Hence, the landscape showed clearly, albeit in shades of red, and living animals appeared as glowing orange shapes. At this moment, he dismounted his bike at the sight of the neon orange form of a medium-sized kangaroo that did not so much hop as knew his orders required him to kill the animal. He considered his options. It was too large to take with the air rifle, but too small to warrant the .30-.06. He advanced 10 paces, closing the range to 10 meters. It turned its head, which bobbed and wobbled, but made no move to flee. He pointed at its head first, then shifted his aim downward to its chest. His shot staggered it, but it hopped not into the brush but toward him, covering in three low-angle hops what a normal kangaroo could have covered in one. He did not fire his second shot, but kicked it in the chest as it made a final lunge for him. The kangaroo tumbled over. He planted a foot on its chest, and fired a coup de grace to its head.

The round nearly beheaded the kangaroo, but did not stop it from thrashing and letting out a long piercing scream. He retreated in horror. When his foot lifted, its thrashing grew still more violent, and it flopped about like a fish out of water, at times seeming to stand up for a moment. The sound and furious movement only grew as the time for any rightful spark of life approached and then passed by. Then it the cry was silenced as suddenly as a sound system unplugged, and the body falling and lying stilllike a puppet with its strings cut.

Almost mechanically, he photographed the carcass and marked its location on the tablet. Then, while his visor was raised, he glanced back at his bike, and his terror returned. Standing between him and his vehicle was a creature that looked like a dog, but to his honed eyes clearly was not. Its fur glistened in the moonlight. Its jaws swung open ponderously, gaping so wide they seemed unhinged. Then it leaped, and those jaws wrapped around Adoni's thigh.

An hour later, Adoni rode through the gate of the Weis homestead. His leg was heavily bandaged, but still soaked with blood. He had his bike in low gear, and still struggled to keep it under control. He fired his .30-.06 into the air before tumbling off his bike. Within minutes, Joe Weis ran out to him, fully clothed and with a semi-automatic center-fire .22 in his hands. He was shouting into a cell phone earpiece; he was on a line to the WilCo hospital, but the dispatcher on the line seemed unwilling or unable to send an ambulance. He lowered the phone and spoke to Adoni. "I'm calling for help now," he told the blackfellow. "How bad are you hurt? What happened?"

"Dibbul dibbul," Adoni said. "Bit- me." Weis was distracted by a loud beep announcing that the line was dead. The Aborigine raised himself to his knees and grabbed Weis by the arm, practically pulling him down.

"Listen," he said in the rancher's ear. "Look at the sky. Look at the star." He pointed, clearly with a specific point in mind, but Weis could see nothing. "That a new star in the cave of the emu's head. It be the eye of Utdjungon, the Great Dibbul Dibbul, whom the Great Spirit made judge of the blackfellas. His eye be bright with hate, because he see we have forgotten the law. His hate be not anger at wrong, but hate that is happiness to see a man fall. Now he make ready to kill us, and all the fellas of the world. He has overturned the world! He make the dead walk, and send them to kill everybody who live!"

Weiss pushed away his hand. "I don't know what you're talking about. But I'm sure help is on the way! Just calm down and try to tell me what happened."

"Whitefellas do no good! Doctor do no good! Guns do no good!" Adoni raved. "Only blackfellas do any good, but we forget the laws, and now we no good neither. Nothing do no good now. But I had to tell somebody. Now I go." He fired the derringer into his ear, and with his dying twitch fired the second shot.


	4. School is in session!

**School is in session!**

Joseph Weis drove onto Carlos's property a little after 4 AM. With him were his two boys, and his wife Jane. Carlos was asleep, but was up instantly when Joe Weis beeped his horn. Within two minutes, he had thrown on some pants and rushed out with a gun at ready. The weapon was a survival carbine, a double-barreled gun comprised of a .22 rimfire barrel over a .410 shotgun. While Carlos easily met the qualifications of an "occupational shooter", he had repeatedly been declined, so he was not allowed to own repeating arms.

"What's this, then?" he said.

"Something bad is happening on the ranch," Weis said. "Adoni is dead: He rode in with a nasty leg wound, raving, then he shot himself. 20 minutes later, I saw... I saw somebody walking in from the wastes."

"Walk??!!" Carlos said. "It's a day's walkabout to anywhere through the waste! Even Adoni couldn't make it on foot during this season! Bloody 'ell, even dingos only come at night, which makes it all the worse for foot travel."

"I know what I saw," Weis said. "And more than that, I recognized him: It was Jeff Kettering."

"Kettering?! He's a decent rockhound, but he's nowhere near good enough to make that walkabout, and way too smart to try."

"Maybe his car broke down at dusk," Weis said. "It was hard enough to recognize him- he was so sunbaked he looked shellacked- but I'm sure it was him. And there's something else. You won't believe this but he- he moved almost like some zombie in a horror movie. But that's not quite right... He wasn't shambling: His walk was slow and- and stiff, and he swayed, but he didn't seem uncoordinated. I don't know how to describe it. It was like-"

Like a penguin walkin'?" Carlos said. He demonstrated.

"That's it! Exactly it!" Weis said. "Anyway, I went out to him. I thought he was in shock. I should have been more careful... Should have thought of the rabies going around. When I got to him, he bit me." He showed a wound just below his right shoulder. "I hit him, just on instinct... I killed him, when I didn't mean to. He fell straight back, and hit the back of his head on a rock. His head cracked wide open. Then I packed the family in the truck and came here."

"Did you talk to any of the neighbors?"

"I raised Hodgson to the south, but not Dowe. I couldn't reach station center either. The company hub must be down."

While they were speaking, Jane hustled the kids out of the car. "I'm going to the company hospital to get this looked at," Joseph said. "I want to leave Jane and the boys here."

"No!" Jane screeched. "We talked about this... You almost ran off the road twice already. I'm not letting you drive any further. The boys stay here. I drive you the rest of the way." After a brief but intense bout of shouting and tears, the kids were left on the driveway while their buckled in the cab.

"One last thing before you go," Carlos said. "You told me Adoni was raving before he died. What exactly did he say?"

"He said there was a new star in the sky. He tried to point it out to me, but I didn't see anything. He said it was the Devil awakened. Except, the name he used was Utjongon-"

"Utdjongon."

"He said it meant the end of the world. And he said-"

"-The dead walk the Earth," Carlos finished.

"Yes! Is that one of your myths?"

"Aye, it gets around some. It came from a northern tribe, probably extinct long since. It was their version of the apocalypse. Now, you be careful. If you should see any sign of trouble, turn right around." Joseph and Jane drove off, leaving Tommy in tears behind.

Colleen drove in just after 6:00, followed by a Phillipino mother named Esther and a teenager named Jonathan in their own vehicles. Between the three of them, they tranported 29 children, including 15 preschoolers and kindergarteners. Colleen explained, "There's been some kind of accident in the company center, and there was talk the bus was stuck in a garage. So, we decided to carpool."

"Did Joe and Jane make it in all right?" Carlos said

Colleen was puzzled. Esther explained, "My husband is the night watchman. He told me, nobody has come in since last night."

"And they weren't on the road?" Colleen shook her head.

Carlos frowned deeply. At that moment, he heard a motor start. Jonathan, who was driving a family van, was about to go back to pick up more. Carlos rushed to stop him. "Stay here, Jonny," he said. "I can get them in the Bus."

The Bus was a variant on an old but still widely used military vehicle nicknamed the Thing. The Thing as a car with huge tires (made to absorb shock in place of a suspension), and a body of bullet-proof ceramic, including a sloping rectangular fuel tank in front that gave it a slight but striking resemblance to a much older Volkswagen Thing. A Bus had the same base chassis, but the tank was oriented vertically and the body was taller and longer, approximating the shape of another VW vehicle. Carlos used it for field trips into the wilderness. Now, he hurriedly loaded several items of cargo, including a 40 L water tank, at least 4 boxes of carbine ammunition, a homemade flame thrower and a case of dynamite. "What are you doing?" Billy said.

"I'm going to the station," he said. Then he cracked a distinctly predatory smile. "I'm going to see if anyone is left to pick up. Jonny! Come here."

He led Jonny into his house. "You know computers, right, Jonny?" he said. He opened a desk drawer and took out a weathered tablet computer, equivalent to Adoni's but half again as heavy. "I could take this with me, but I think you may need it more than I do. I expect you know what this can do, as built. I modified to do a little more: Access the military satcom grid." Jonny gaped. "I know, against the law, trial in military court and all that. Trust me, I've done worse. At any rate, with the company hub down, this is our only means of long-distance communication in or outside. But first I want you to see if you can access short-range feeds from town center. There's a good chance they're bouncing off the IPCoPS satellites even if no one's listening.

"I have onboard equipment in the van that's linked directly to this tablet, including audio-video feed. I'll signal you if there's something important. Keep an eye on it while you're doing the other things I told you. Use headphones. And for the love of the Earth Mother, don't let the kids see the video feed!" While Jonny gaped in confusion and mounting fear, Carlos rushed out. He froze on the door step, in the midst of the preschoolers. "Aw, shh-Weet Mother!" he shouted.

In the direction of the station center, a thick column of smoke was rising into the sky.


	5. Rescue mission

**This chapter introduces my current version of the "zombies", which are here called kudlaks. Here, they are much closer to the romero archetype than in my novel "Walking Dead", but I have retained a variation on the undead's vulnerability that I introduced in that book.**

**Rescue mission**

Notwithstanding the obvious dangers, Carlos barreled toward the station center. The Bus's main controls were a yoke, more like an airplane stick than a conventional steering wheel, which controlled speed as well as steering. He dodged several abandoned cars and trucks, neither of which were Joe Weis's flatbed. His progress came entirely to a halt 4 km from the center. Here, a dirt road used by ranchers intersected the paved road, and a little satellite to the station center provided a paddock for exercising and inspecting livestock and a restaurant for the truck drivers who brought them. A truck had jacknifed as it turned left onto the asphalt, apparently while carrying a load of sheep. Two dozen of them now lurched about, and more were wandering in from the paddock. A large cluster jostle each other for bites out of a broken body of a driver who had been ejected through the windshield.

"Jonny!" he said. "Can you give me any recon?"

"Yes," Jonny anwered, sounding dazed. Images began to appear on a dashboard screen.

It was a satellite video feed of the town center, of quite poor quality. At irregular intervals, the video stopped, blurred or went entirely black. But it was enough. He could see the sprawling three-story infirmary on the northeast edge, intact but clearly uninhabited. Practically next door, a vehicle depot that held anbulances, buses and maintenance vehicles was in flames, with vehicles and fuel tanks exploding one by one. When the slow chain reaction reached the main refueling bay, an underground tank ignited, and a mushroom cloud of flame and smoke shot into the sky. The blast created a halo of secondary explosions, and the blast front of the combined explosions shattered winows, blew off shingles and fractured masonry all over the eastern side of town. An equal and opposite implosion did further damage. The general store had its roof torn off before the whole building looked at the time stamp. "This feed is on a five-minute lag," he said. "That's the blast we saw from the school!"

On the other side of the road from the general store was the company housing, two long, two-story apartment buildings with a lane running between them. It was clear at a glance that the inhabitants were beyond help. The few who had their own cars had managed to block the mouth of the lane with a pile-up. One building was in flames. The only life in evidence were scores of strangely indistinct figures that moved about in a slow, dragging walk. Most would call them zombies. Carlos knew them (or something very like them) as kudlaks, the Serbo-Croatian name for the feared undead.

"Zoom out, Jonny," Carlos said. The scope of the picture doubled. Three "satellites" to the station center became visible. One was the ranchers' stop, the fate of which was in no doubt. To the north, a third apartment building held the station center's own staff. It had been damaged by the blast, and the strangely slow human forms were lurching in and out of the smashed front doors. To the west, a cluster of three free-standing townhomes held 12 of the better-paid staff and their families. Two were clearly no longer inhabited, apart from the lurching kudlaks. The last was besieged by dozens of undead. Two of the units already had doors broken open, and the feed showed a third breached. Two shotgun blasts were fired from the last unit, but not one of the figures did more than stagger.

"All right, Jonny, that's where I want to go," Carlos said. There was a bump against the left passenger door, and another. Carlos looked out the door and saw a ram lunge forward to strike a glancing blow with its horns. "But first, I make some mutton."

The ram backed up unsteadily, clearly intent on a running start. Carlos opened a window and shot it in the forehead with a .22 round. Another sheep leaped up and almost caught the gun in its teeth. Carlos stood up and fired the .410 barrel downward. The sheep let out a bleat, but slammed against the door with enough force to shake the Bus. Then a hard jolt came from the right, followed by a steady pushing. A whole group of sheep were pushing from the right. The vehicle was much too sturdy for them to break through, but at only 700 kg, it would be quite easy to push over. Carlos did the only thing he could: Pulling back the steering yoke, he sent the Bus into reverse. The sheep fell over each other. One went under the wheels, giving Carlos a double jolt. Within 10 meters, the Bus rolled off the road. Carlos pushed the yoke forward to brake, and came to a stop with the Bus's right side facing the advancing sheep. He withdrew to the back, where boxes of ammunition were ready, and threw open the sliding door.

A ram charged, after a fashion, bounding like a rabbit in slow motion. He caught it in the side of its head, and it fell while still thrashing. He fired the .22 at a ewe lurching slightly faster than the general mass of sheep. The round struck the ewe in the ribs, and she fell with a strangled bleat and a spray of blood. Carlos reloaded and fired three more times before the sheep reached him. He slammed the door on the head of a sheep that had survived a .410 blast, then dispatched it with a blow from a rock hammer. Once again, a wall of red-streaked fleece pushed and piled up against the van. Sheep beat themselves senseless, or pushed till they were smothered. Carlos continued to fire, until the vehicle tilted enough to pitch him against the wall. He returned to the driver's seat and drove forward, rolling across the road and past the truck while the sheep stumbled over each other. A ram hurled itself at the Bus, only to split its head against the fuel tank.

Carlos glanced at the video feed. The things that had been men were already pushing at the door of the remaining unit. One of them lost an arm to a shotgun blast. Blood and assorted gore spattered everywhere, but there was none of the gushing and spurting to be expected from a living heart. A second blast tore off the top of another creature's head. It fell, but promptly got back up. "No," Carlos muttered, "it has to be the back of the head."

He steered toward the lane, where a column of kudlaks ambled fom the company barracks toward the townhomes. He pulled back the stick to shoot an undead woman low in the back of her skull, at the spot known to anatomists as the occipital condyle. The tightly packed shot of the .410 shredded the hind brain, which controlled the major functions of the body, and severed the spinal cord. It fell in an istant, inert save for a convulsive thrashing of the body. Carlos then slowed still more and fired the .22 barrel into the ear of another kudlak. It did not die, but staggered and fell, its organs of balance destroyed, and failed in every attempt to get up, while others walked by or over it indifferently.

Carlos ran over three kudlaks as he steered onto the road, and moments later plowed through a dozen as he entered the townhome parking lot. He honked his horn, and threw a stick of dynamite out the window. Two hapless kudlaks were torn to pieces. Many more fell, either blown off their feet or massively disoriented by trauma to the inner ear. He blasted one of the few still standing with the .410. Then he began driving in circles, running over fallen kudlaks. Finally, he drove onto the sidewalk, straight for the besieged unit.

A dozen gathered kudlaks fell at the blast of another stick of dynamite. The door was caved in, but there was still some hope; the townhomes did have basements. He threw open the Bus door, paused to shoot a kudlak that tried to bite his ankle, then ran inside. Three kudlaks were inside. He took one with a .410 shell, and punctured the ear of another with the point of his rock hammer. The last he struck in the forehead with the heavy, blunt end of the hammer. Its skull split, and it went down immediately.

Two more kudlaks were scratching at a cellar door. He shot both from the top of the stairs. He rushed down and used a .410 slug (actually a .45 pitol round) to shoot out the lock. He looked inside, and his shoulders sank. The occupants were a family of four. The man of the house, defending himself and his family with a double-barreled 12-gauge, had used his last four shells on his children, his wife and himself.


	6. Home Defense

**Home security**

"Dr. Wrzniewski," Jonny said, "what were those things?"

"They were human, and they were alive," Carlos said absentmindedly. "Now, they're- something else. Call them kudlaks, zombies, vampires, reanimates- does it really matter? All that matters is that they're real, they're here and they certainly don't mean us any good. Don't tell the others, not just yet. But do lock both doors and shutter all the windows on the ground floor, and have Ms. Fitzhugh take all the children down to my cellar."

"Will they be safe there?"

"No promises. The important thing is, they won't see their parents."

"Should I be with them?"

"Nay, I need a pair of eyes topside till I get back. If any of them show up, go upstairs. And if any of them get in, you must- absolutely must- destroy the computer."

"Why?? It's our only link to the rest of the world!"

"Aye, and it could be theirs too! These are more than walking corpses, and they can do a lot more than break down doors and bite people. Trust me, it would be better for every last one of us to die than for one of them to get hold of something like that."

Colleen and Esther methodically rounded up the children, most of whom simply did as they were told automatically. Billy and Tommy were the exceptions. Tommy began to cry. Billy tried to get the attention of the two adults, only to be shooed away or simply ignored. Finally, he led his brother, still hysterical, to Jonny. The teenager spoke first: "Billy, you and Tommy need to go downstairs!"

"I would," Billy said, somewhat indignantly, "but Tommy won't!"

Then Tommy spoke with more or less coherent words: "Daddy's outside! Daddy's outside!"

Billy calmed him down enough for Jonny to ask: "Are you scared your daddy will be locked out?"

The boy shook his head and screeched, "NO! Daddy's hurt! Daddy's _scary!_"

"Jonny and Uncle Carlos will get help for Daddy," Billy said soothingly. He stooped to put his arms around his brother. Tommy nearly convulsed; he threw himself to the floor and tried to wrap his arms around a heavy desk. Jonny had to help Billy pull him loose, pick him up and carry him into the basement. As he came back up, he heard a faint tinkle of glass. He swore and ran for the office where he had left the computer. He rushed in to find himself face to face with Joe Weis.

Weis- or the thing that had been Weis- was at that moment climbing in the window. He had a serious wound on his forehead, and the length of his forearm was torn open. The wounds did not so much bleed as merely head turned toward him, but the eyes, already filmy with dust and dessication, did not focus. There was a gasp; Billy was behind him. His eyes darted about the office. There was a sturdy wooden chair in front of the desk. He grabbed it and heaved it at the kudlak. It took a glancing blow to the head, staggered and toppled back out the window.

Jonny ran forward, and snatched up a large rock on Carlos's desk. He saw the thing rising, and lifted the rock. Then a hand reached almost hesitantly, caught hold of his shirt, and yanked him forward with superhuman strength. He slammed against the window frame. The rock fell from his hand. He pushed back, and his shirt tore, just in time for him to back away from a second hand that reached for his throat. Billy rushed forward, holding up the worn, heavy hunting boomerang he had shown Carlos the previous day. He did not throw it, but swung it like a flat club. Three swift blows, the last to the back of the neck, sent the thing that had been his father toppling to the ground. While the kudlak continued to thrash in the dust (no sound whatsoever came from its mouth), Jonny grabbed the tablet with one hand and Billy's arm with the other and ran out the door and up the stairs. He only stopped at the sound of soft steps coming behind.

"Is Daddy gone?" Tommy said.

Carlos drove back into the yard at 8:20 in the morning. He hastily chained the gate behind him, and drove the Bus straight up to his porch. He climbed out a hatch in the roof, stepped onto the porch roof and went from there straight into an open window of the second floor. The second floor was more like an attic than a full-fledged story, but it was big enough to hold a bunk and a large stockpile of ammunition. He stifled a curse when he found three boys waiting for him.

Carlos first made sure to dispatch Joseph Weis, severing the spine with a point-blank .410 blast, and board up the broken window in his office. Then he talked to Colleen Fitzhugh through the cellar door, assuring her that everyone was okay. He told her that a rabies outbreak had occurred among the sheep, and that this had led to an accidental explosion in the station center. He emphatically told her not to come up, or open the door for anyone but him. Then he went back upstairs.

With help from Jonny, and a little from Billy too, he transferred most of the ammunition in the Bus to the second floor. He then began to set up a sniper's nest over the porch. First, he set up a folding chair with a shade over the seat. Next, he set out a water tank and a box of rations. Finally, he moved out box after box of ammunition. He conversationally explained his gun and assorted ammunition to Billy and Tommy.

"Y'see, boys, for a long time, lots of Aussies owned guns, especially those of us in the interior. Guns were easy to obtain, and those who owned them only used them for hunting. But, almost a hundred years ago, a crazy man got hold of a fully automatic rifle and started shooting every tourist in sight, and afterwards the prime minister and parliament went crazy and started banning every gun in sight. That's why the only gun your Uncle Carlos can own is this `survival carbine'."

He held up a .22 round. "These rounds go in the top barrel. It's a 5.56 mm rimfire cartridge, which is the next best thing to a rifle."

Tommy repeated in a scornful tone, "Wimfoyer."

He next held up a .410 shell. "This is the smallest caliber of shotgun shell. It's called either the .410, or the 67-gauge. It's not much use against anything bigger than a rat, even at this 7.62 cm length, unless you get real close. But, it so happens that it can also chamber a .45 pistol round. Now, the crazy people who tried to take all our guns banned any handgun that big. But, people were able to buy the same ammo as .410 `slugs'. I personally got these." He held up a fat bullet in a casing 5 cm long. "This is the .454 Cassull, the most powerful round ever built in its caliber. It's got about half again the power of a standard 5.56 `assault rifle' round."

"Caaasssoooollll," Tommy cooed.

"Carlos," Billy said, "did I really hurt my father?"

"No, Billy," Carlos said without hesitation. "Your father died, somewhere between here and station center. But something took over his body, and used it to do things he would have died to stop."

"You mean a demon, like the Bible talks about?"

"I don't know, Billy."

"Did my mom die, too?"

"I don't know, Billy." As Carlos spoke, his eyes met Billy's, and the boy burst into tears. Tommy started crying immediately, and soon enough, Carlos was shedding silent tears.

At noon, the first of the kudlaks appeared at the gate.


	7. Siege

**Siege**

The gate to Carlos's lot was 100 meters from the porch. The first kudlak to arrive was in the clothes of a rancher, accompanied by three lurching sheep. There was a faint crack and a high-pitched whine. The sound was repeated, and a sheep fell dead. The kudlak reached out and touched the gate, then gripped one of the metal bars with both hands. Slowly but surely, the metal began to bend. Spots of rust appeared where the undead hands touched. Then a .22 bullet went into its skull just above the left eye socket. It fell, got back up, then walked in a tight circle twice before falling down again, to lie there thrashing.

Carlos watched from his chair. He wore sunglasses, and a cap with a headdress that covered his neck. He had fired the killing shot with a bolt-action magnum rimfire rifle, which had twice the range of the standard .22 Long rifle.

"Why don't they die- stop- when you shoot them in the head?" Billy said. "The movies always say that even a zombie can't survive with its brain destroyed."

"Well, Billy, you obviously can't depend on movies for information," Carlos said. "But, I'm pretty sure the movies had the right idea. They just underestimated what's necessary to do the job. The human brain is a very large, very complex and very durable organ. No one knows what, if anything, most of the brain does. As far as anyone can tell, the only parts of the brain that are essential to life are the hind brain and brain stem. Apart from that, there's no form of head trauma that someone at one time or another hasn't survived. And that's what happens with normal, living people. I'm sure these things go down even harder." He fired the rimfire at another kudlak, which twitched on its feet as a round bounced around the inside of its skull. "All in all, it's more practical to destroy the inner ear- the organs of balance," Carlos said when it finally keeled over. "If that's not working, they can't get up no matter how long they try. Though they might still crawl respectable distances."

At first, the kudlaks came singly or in small groups. Carlos laid down enough fire to keep their numbers down to no more than a dozen at any given time. But then, starting at 1:00, the main mass of them arrived. While they were concentrated on the road, enough were walking on the earth to send a cloud of dust ahead of them. Though it was very hard to make out features of individuals, these had clearly been the inhabitants of the station center: women and men, and far too many children. Twenty of them reached the fence at once, and before Carlos could bring down five of them, forty more had arrived. He donned a dust mask and continued to fire, bringing down a kudlak every third or fourth shot, until he ran out of magnum ammunition. By then, the gate was already half-open. The chain broke, and kudlaks poured in.

One got ahead of the general mass, and was rewarded with a Casull slug that punched into its temple and back out behind its ear. It fell at once, and did no more than thrash where it lay afterwards. A rimfire shot brought down another advancing ahead of the group, which got up but quickly fell back into the throng. A few seconds later, another rimfire round hit a kudlak in the temple, but only staggered it. In frustration, Carlos fired a .410 blast at 70 m range. The steel shot caused a number of flesh wounds. A kudlak with blood coming out of its ear got itself turned around, and plowed into its fellows.

Carlos fired more shots, to marginally better effect, bringing down eight or nine kudlaks before they closed to 50 m range. There, the kudlaks encountered the inner fence, which separated a discrete front yard from the rest of the lot. By now, they were fanning out.

Carlos fired both barrels five more times, then he stood up. "Time to take the fight to them," he said grimly.

He descended to the ground through the van, and emerged carrying the flame thrower. While flamethrowers had initially been banned by Australia's arms laws, loopholes had been created for homemade devices used by farmers and ranchers, who had legitimate use for them. While still regulated, these were classified as agricultural tools rather than weapons, and were indeed distinctly useless against anything but weeds and dry brush. Carlos' propane-fueled specimen was more marginal than most, with a range of 5 meters with a favorable wind.

He jogged straight for the gate, breaking stride to shoot one of them that had climbed more than halfway up the fence. He let fly with the flame thrower three meters from the gate, and the flame jet just reached the kudlaks. Only three of them caught fire, but the rest recoiled. The ones that lit up fell thrashing to the ground. He ran to the left, spraying more of them as they moved for the left flank. About as much fuel landed inside the fence as outside of it. Flames spread quickly through the brush. A cluster of bushes near the corner ignited, sending the kudlaks retreating the other direction. He bracketed them and sprayed until the fuel tank went dry. He had to retreat to get away from the spreading blaze.

Carlos hooked up a second tank while he was on the move. The kudlaks were regrouping on the right. He fired at them as they clustered at the corner from 3 m range. The jet curled with the wind, and instead lit up two of the undead that had wandered 7 m downrange. He closed in, until clutching hands through the fence threatened to grab the flame thrower muzzle, and sprayed. Seven caught fire, and the rest reeled back. He looked up just in time to see an exception as it topped the fence. He fired the .22 straight up and put a bullet through the palate. It froze, hung for a moment and fell back, landing on at least one other kudlak with a sticky crunch.

Even with flames in front of them, the kudlaks crowded toward Carlos. He loaded and emptied his gun five times before falling back. He tossed a quarter-stick of dynamite to knock down kudlaks grouping on the right, then torched them with the rest of the flamethrower fuel. He cast it aside and circled around the right side of the house. The wind was fanning the flames, enough to cut off the right fence. But kudlaks were making their way around the blaze on the left. Just as he arrived, one of them came down inside the fence. He shot it with a Casull slug, and used a .22 on one just topping the fence. It fell, dragging another with it, and the bodies struck at least five more. He closed to point-blank range and fired the last of his ammunition into the crowd, shooting ten kudlaks in the head. He heard a thump, and turned to see a kudlak sprawled a few meters away. It had scaled the rear fence and come down in the garden, only to trip on a low chicken wire barrier that separated the garden from the rest of the yard. Four more were already in the garden, and a dozen more were scaling the fence. He retreated to a garden shed.

Within moments, three kudlaks converged on the shed. They were greeted with both barrels of a 12-gauge shotgun. Carlos threw open the perforated door of the shed, shot down two more kudlaks, and sprinted to the garden. He hurled a dozen cylinderes into the garden. Each made a beeping sound, and then released a cloud of orange mist: aerosol insecticide. As he threw the last one, a kudlak tried to grab him. He downed it with a blow to the ear of the blunt end of his hammer and followed up by driving the point into the back of its skull. Three more were coming behind. He ignited a flare, and the kudlaks recoiled. Then he tossed the flare into the garden, whch instantly erupted into flames.

Fifteen kudlaks were caught in the immediate blast. The wind blew the flames back, igniting many more behind the fence. One of seven kudlaks in the yard also caught fire, and a dull KRUMPF of imploding air sent them all sprawling. Carlos dispatched the three nearest himself with his hammer, and shot three more. He retreated once again to the garden shed. The threat from the rear was netralized, but a steady stream of kudlaks were coming over the left fence. Carlos broke a small window in the side of the shed and fired through it, bringing down fifteen more of the undead. Just before the kudlaks could reach the door of the shed, he stuffed several fistfulls of shells in his pockets and ran out, much faster than was necessary to outpace the undead. One kudlak wrenched the door of its hinges and stepped in, surveying the interior with whatever new or old senses it had. If it had any remaining reason or memory, it could have itemized the shed's contents thus: a rack of tools, a dozen "bug bombs", six boxes of 25 shotgun shells each, 30 kg of chemical fertilizer... and a lit stick of dynamite.


	8. Melee

**Melee**

The blast from the garden shed tore through the backyard. About fifty kudlaks were caught in the blast zone, and not one kept its feet. Of them, about half were brought down for good. A dozen were torn to pieces as they crowded around the shed, and others took shrapnel to the hindbrain or spine. One exceptionally hapless specimen was decapitated by a piece of the shed roof. Of those that retained some measure of functionality, about two-thirds could only crawl, due to mangled or missing legs, damaged spines or burst eardrums.

Unfortunately, the blast also heavily damaged the rear of the house. Boarded windows broke open, the door was knocked ajar, and a fist-sized hole was blown in the concrete directly behind the shed. Considerable damage was also done to the fence, and large swaths of the protective fires were snuffed out. Two dozen stragglers soon found their way into the yard. A kudlak knocked the back door the rest of the way open, and two more walked in after it. One of the crawling kudlaks made its way around the right side of the house, until it encountered a cellar trapdoor. It pried open the door, and there was a chorus of screams. Then, just when it was halfway in, there was a crack like a splitting melon, and the kudlak halted.

Carlos threw open the trap door. "Stay here, kids!" he shouted over his shoulder. He rushed around the corner, bounding over a crawler that tried to bite through his boot. He found five of the walking kudlaks jostling each other to get in the door, He fired both barrels, downing four and staggering the fifth, which went down for good at a blow of his hammer. He reloaded and turned to bring down two of the newcomers, then started dispatching crawlers with his hammer. They were not only going for the door, but climbing up the walls. One got high enough to smash a second-floor window. Carlos used a shotgun shell on it, and another on a crawler that grabbed hold of his ankle. Finally, as the first of the new arrivals reached the porch, he ducked inside.

Within a moment of Carlos's entry, there was a flash and roar from the shotgun. A kudlak inside fell. As the next kudlak stepped through, there was a dim flash of a swinging hammer, and it fell just inside the threshhold. The one behind it was hit as it stepped over the twitching body, and fell forward. A third fell back, its nose caved in, and another tripped over it. Four, then six kudlaks piled up behing this barricade of bodies, and before any could get through the door, another double-barreled blast felled five of them. As the sixth stood, seeming perplexed, it was grabbed by the arm and pulled forward to fall under a swing of Carlos's hammer. As the body fell, there was a sound of splintering wood inside the house, and Carlos withdrew with a curse.

Colleen swung a pipe at the kudlak which pushed its way through the inside cellar door, with enough force to bend the pipe. It fell with its temple and one eye socket caved in. While it tried to rise, a crawler came over it. Colleen jabbed downward, lodging one end of the pipe into the back of its head. The body spasmed, and the teacher retreated with a shriek, leaving the pipe. She had mistaken the convulsions of the destroyed nervous system for a continuing attack, and so had no weapon when the first attacker regained its feet and staggered in. She drew back in time to escape a grabbing hand, only to run into a cabinet. A ten-year-old boy, a promising little athlete, hurled a croquet ball and hit it in the ear. It staggered and toppled back, to land squarely on the upright pipe. When it started to sit up, its rib cage rebounded against the pipe. Before it could free itself, Esther finished demolishing its skull with a heave of a rock. Moments later, Carlos descended the stairs. "Damn it! I left the choke point for nothing!" he fumed. He ran back up the stairs, and fired the 12-gauge four times.

Only a handful of crawlers remained at the door, and Carlos easily dispatched them with his hammer as they came over the bodies of the fallen. Then he heard a crunch of falling masonry just out of sight, and ran around a corner to a reading room. This was where the explosion had knocked a hole in the wall. He entered the room to find the hole expanding, as a standing kudlak and two crawlers clawed at the edges. Brick and plaster cracked and crumbled, not simply at applied force but in what seemed like a rapid process of material decay, as if the natural wear and weathering of years and decades was being compressed into moments. He fired a blast at the standing kudlak. With a hint of agility, it tilted its head to one side, but still fell with one side of its face laid open. He lunged forward to brain a crawler. The other, which had been torn in half at the waist, beat a surprisingly rapid retreat. He beheaded it with a shotgun blast just before it reached the edge of the porch. As he leaned out, the fallen kudlak abruptly sat up and grabbed hold of the gun. The gun cracked open on its worn hinge, and when he tried to pull it away from the kudlak, the weapon snapped in two. The kudlak rose to its feet and lunged for him. Carlos had just enough time to load and fire one shell from the open chamber. A cloud of gas and powder sprayed out along with the shot, searing the kudlak,s flesh while the shot tore apart its skull. It fell still in flames.

A quick sweep showed the first floor to be empty of undead. He looked up the stairs, and saw the door still firmly shut. Then he saw that the front door had been pushed open from inside. He cursed and ran out the door. As he crossed the threshhold, he hear a faint hum, and dived aside just in time to avoid being hit by his own Bus. The righthand door was torn off its hinges, and a corpse, no longer even undead, slumped behind the wheel. The Bus slammed to a halt against a wall, and Carlos lunged inside. A screen on the console showed twisting and squirming shapes, an oscillating, inhuman squeal came from the speakers, and a red light was flashing on the uplink equipment on the dashboard. Without hesitation, Carlos smashed the uplink with his hammer.

The noise from the console became a rising scream, and the console screen flared with something like static. Carlos dived out the lefthand door and ran for Colleen's small car. He smashed a window and rummaged inside, before running back with a pair of jumper cables. In 45 seconds of creative rewiring, he hooked the Bus onboard computer directly to the hydrogen turbine. "Can you say `power surge', sucker?" he shouted. He flipped a switch, and jumped out of the car as the turbine activated. The speakers reached a crescendo and the screen flashed a brilliant electric blue-white before both went out. At the same time, sparks and smoke erupted from the console.

Abruptly, the thin black smoke thickened into a milky white mist, translucent but quite visible. The mist poured out in a sudden surge, then blew straight for Carlos. Electric sparks came from the cloud, shocking Carlos. He hurled his hammer into the mist; its passage left a hole in the mist, and its advance was stopped for a few moments as it coalesced back together. It was just enough time for Carlos to run inside. The mist seemed to race after him, and advanced faster still when his retreat ended in a corner of his living room. As the mist surged and spread to envelope him, Carlos spun around and thrust something out in front of him. It was the old boomerang. The mist seemed to brake, but momentum carried it forward, and as it cascaded against the boomerang, it vanished.


	9. School is out!

**Apolgies for the long wait; I have been working on other things (mainly a kindle version of "Aliens v. Exotroopers"). This should be the second-to-last chapter. Incidently, I have made minor changes to chapters 2 and 8.**

**School is out!**

By sunset, the immediate threat was past. Carlos executed a sweep of his property. The few kudlaks that remained standing were picked off in a leisurely way with the .22. The many more that crawled about were dispatched with hammer blows and close-range shotgun blasts. Now and then, one or a few new arrivals would come, mainly from the south. "Are we safe yet, Carlos?" Billy asked.

"I don't know," Carlos said, as he shot two of the latest arrivals from a rear window. "These needn't cause any trouble: They must be coming from the outlying ranches. They'd be arriving now just because they walked farther, and there can't be many of them. They won't swamp us like the ones from town did. If another attack like that comes, it will be when- _if_- they start coming down from one of the large towns north or west, like Barkly or Tennants' Creek. But there's no reason to think it will come to that. Jonny! Have any news?"

"Well, it looks like the infected sheep and cattle are dying- really dying, I mean, not getting back up."

"Whatever causes it must affect humans different from other species. Any signs of infestations further north?"

"Well- thats the oddest thing. There's no picture from Barkly. I think the satellite feed went down." He pointed to the screen. The site of Barkly was a black void.

"No, it isn't," Carlos said. Then he swore, loudly and foully. After calming a bit, he explained, "Barkly is under `ghost protocol'. It was designed to keep civilians from using real-time satellite imaging to spy on military and government installations. The protected area is either blacked out, or filled in with older footage. It can kick in for low-level military users, too. This is why the feed of station center was so slow: It was competing with a classified, high-priority feed from Barkly. Shift to Tenants' Creek, and see if you can get an emergency broadcast feed."

Within seconds, a voice came out of the computer: "-from Barkly chemical spill are spreading. Tennant Creek is to be evacuated. All residents with their own cars should drive to Barrow Creek, where an aid station has been set up to receive you and provide treatment for any chemical exposure. To minimize risk of exposure to airborne chemicals, keep doors and windows shut at all time. Do not pick up hitch hikers. Do not attempt to go north, as this will interfere with the timely deployment of relief workers. Those without automobiles should remain in their homes and await evacuation by the guard. Those who show signs of exposure to the chemicals should also remain behind, to receive more prompt treatment. Renner Springs residents are advised to remain... "

"Easy enough to read between the lines," Carlos said. "The kudlaks reached Barkly, may have taken it out, in which case there could be 1500 more of them. Now, they're headed for Tennant Creek, if they haven't arrived already. From there, the nearest town is Renner to the north, and Barrow is to the south. The army is going to come down from Darwin, likely as not from Queensland, too. They'll set up base in Renner- no, in Newcastle, to play it safe. Meanwhile, the people of Tennant Creek get herded the other way, toward Alice, but get stopped in Barrow, where they can be sorted out well away from a population center.

"But our chief concern is where we're going and how we get there. Barkly is, of course, out, and that puts us in a world o' hurt. My Bus could drive over anything short of a cliff. That could carry twelve kids, maybe 20 if we double up little ones. Esther's van could carry even more, but it's a total bust off the company road."

"We could drive to Hodgson's station and switch to one of his offroad trucks," Jonny said.

Carlos shook his head. "Too many ifs. What if the vehicles are gone, or wrecked, or just plain out of gas? What if there are still kudlaks about? What if the whole place is burnt to the ground? You may hope for the best, boy, but you must plan for the worst. So, that leaves us Colleen's four-wheel drive, and your truck. Let's see... Colleen's car has 5 seats, and we can strap more in the cargo area. Let's say nine, ten. Your truck could hold four in the cab. That leaves 6. They can go in the truck bed. Can't say I'm happy about it, but it's an acceptable option."

They loaded into three of the four vehicles accordingly. Esther drove Jonny's truck, while he rode shotgun in the Bus, running the tablet computer. Carlos' intentional overload had left the Bus's electrical systems unharmed, thanks to features designed to protect the vehicle from EMPs in its original military role, but the onboard navigation computer was virtually destroyed. The tablet would have to serve in its place. As they drove away, there was a distant but quite audible booming. Carlos looked and saw a bright light to the northwest, just over the curve of the horizon. "That could be Tennant Creek," he said to no one in particular.

It was 36 kilometers from Carlos's house to Hodgson ranch and the end of the company road. The travelers turned onto a dirt maintenance road after less than 20. Besides kudlaks that seemed to appear every kilometer or two, the company road was strewn with wrecked vehicles and livestock were almost all dead, and unpleasant enough: In more than one place, the little convoy had to drive over piles of dead sheep like so many speed bumps, and amid the gruesome squishing and cracking sounds the occasional strangled bleats announced a sheep that had not been quite dead. But there were plenty of animals still alive, though obviously infected by whatever had created the undead. The most numerous were dingos and crows, which could be seen feeding on carcasses. At the approach of the vehicles, the dingos rose and came at them with a slow but oddly steady and rhythmic loping, while the crows ran and hopped like the archaeopteryces might have done before learning to fly. But there were others: kookaburras, eagles, sheep dogs, barnyard cats, and kangaroos of all sizes. They finally abandoned the road when they saw a column of amoke and flame rising from Hodgson's station. Carlos went into a U-turn and went back to a maintenance road turn-off half a kilometer behind.

"We're going south and west until we hit the Sandover track. It was never that good, and it's been under-maintained lately, but it's a straight shot to Hart's Range, and then just good open road to Alice."

"Why not take the turn-off to Barrow?"

"Because," Carlos said darkly, "that is where they want us to go."

"Wait a minute," Billy said. "The army exists to help us, and you were one of them. Aren't they, like, your old buddies?"

"My old mates are dead," Carlos said. "And they weren't the ones who were giving the orders. As far as brass, past and present... I won't say they would wish any harm, as a rule. But their job is protecting the `greater good', and that can mean a world of hurt for the fewer. I've seen what they are willing to do: Quarantine stations. People herded behind barbed wire like cattle. Bodies thrown in trenches, covered with a little sand and then more bodies. Guards who are prisoners as much as the inmates, and even more scared. And worse, lots worse. There's nothing I wouldn't take my chances on over being in a place like that again."

He fell sullenly silent. They drove and drove. They reached the track within an hour, but even there, their speed rarely went over 50 kph. The road had begun as a graded gravel path, and only gotten worse over time. Time and traffic had thinned the gravel, until what remained was a hard-packed, crack-riddled crust. Its most worn stretches consisted of high points of exposed rocks and lows of pot holes aspiring to become valleys. Weeds were few and far between, but the few that were tough and determined enough to grow at all were a menace to anything but the Bus's mine-resistant tires. There were few dead sheep, but other animals were very much in evidence. Several frightening encounters occurred. A crazed emu paced the truck at 40 kph, until Carlos turned around and shot it. A pack of infected dingos ran head-on at the Bus, smashing one after another against the thick front. Fiercest of all was a huge red kangaroo feeding on a smaller gray kangaroo's carcass beside the road. It remained on all fours for three loping strides as it moved into the path of the oncoming Bus, then reared to its full 2 m height, screamed and made a flying kick at windshield height. Carlos swerved in time for a glancing impact to the door instead; as it was, the plastic of the door crumpled and spiderwebbed, and the vehicle rocked to one side. Carlos lost control, and before he could regain it, the Bus careened off the road and into a drainage ditch.

Carlos went into reverse gear. The wheels only spun in vain. "We're going to have to push it out," Carlos said. "Jonny, Billy- get out and help me!" As he stepped out and shut the door behind him, he glimpsed a striped, dog-like form at the edge of the headlights. His eyes widened in recognition. As he looked upon the eldritch form he saw in his mind's eye a vision of the desert grown green again, of fields and forests where kangaroos and wombats roamed and thylacines hunted anew, and of bands of blackfellows who hunted by the old ways again, while the occasional haggard white fellow pleaded in vain to be admitted to one of their tribes. At this last part of the vision, his eyes abruptly narrowed. "You had your time, and we had ours," he said. "Can't you leave today for them?"

On each side of the creature, a kudlak stepped into the light. He unshouldered the carbine and fired it with the stock folded. One kudlak fell with a face full of shot. A .22 whizzed by the other's head as it lunged forward. Carlos had just enough time to drop the carbine and take out his hammer. The kudlak fell with the point embedded in its skull. Its opponent disarmed, the thylacine bounded forward. As it made a final leap for Carlos's throat, he pulled the old boomerang from his belt and swung it straight down into the undead skull with a force that splintered wood and bone alike.

The thylacine fell to the ground at Carlos' feet. It no longer moved, nor did it look like a fresh carcass. Instead, it looked like a mummy, and not a well-preserved one, but a contorted carcass with cracked and translucent skin over yellowed bone and fibrous flesh. The pieces of the boomerang were also changed. It had split where the heavier upper part met the handle-like lower end, obliterating the sigil in the process. What had been darkwood was now bleached nearly white, and what had been a smooth, almost polished surface was now splintered and cracked with age as much as the blow that had broken it. As a wind rose from the south, the thylacine's hide began to crumble like ancient parchment, and what had been the surface of the boomerang blew away as fine dust.


	10. End of the Track

**End of the Track**

_So people listen, we all shall go_

_As our springs have dried and the seasons changed. _

_We smile, because that day will come_

_When we are gone..._

_As night descends, so ends our day._

The hour was just past darkest night. Carlos had driven for hours and hundreds of kilometers. He had only stopped twice since the weird battle with the thylacine. Once was to observe a falling "star" less than two kilometers from the road. Looking through binoculars, he saw it land, and then from the roof of the Bus, he examined what remained of the object. "It's a satellite," he had said.

After that, he had Jonny zoom out the satellite feed to a wider field, and Carlos stopped again to look at the results. It proved grainy, with obvious skips in the real-time feed. There were also four new dark spaces in the map: at Barrow, at Renner Springs, at Newcastle and at the town of Cape Crawford, which was a long distance directly north of Barkly. Carlos had sworn. "The kudlak plague must've gone north, with a few who managed to drive out of Barkly on the Tablelands route. If it goes west from there, the army in Newcastle would be cut off. So they're fallin' back, prob'ly to Daly, maybe all the way to Katherine."

Now, as they approached an intersecting road that came south from Barrow and went down to Hart's range, he swore again, at an odd vehicles that barred the way south. Its body that were little more than a six-wheeled chassis, and it bore a ball turret conspicuously lacking room for an operator. "Shoulda seen this coming," he said. "They left a battle drone to cover their butts."

"Turn right!" a voice blared from the drone. "Turn left, and you will be fired upon! Go forward, and you will be fired upon!" Carlos stopped, opened the door and strode toward the drone. "Return to your vehicle! Halt! Back away from the unit! Display your hands and-" Carlos lobbed a small object with an underhanded throw. It bounced twice and then rolled between the drone's wheels. There was no explosion, but a bright flash. The drone's loud speakers squealed and then shut down with an audible click.

Carlos returned to the Bus, and drove down the southwestern route, nosing the inert drone off the road and out of the way. "It'll probably come back on line in 10 minutes," he said. "We can be out of acquisition range by then."

But, in less time than that, there was a sound of helicopter rotors. A large transport helicopter swooped overhead. A voice blared from on high: "Corporal Carlos Wrzniewski! Pull over! We are here to help you!"

Carlos pulled the yoke back, and the Bus slowed to a halt. The helicopter came down in front of him. The doors in its sides slid open, and four soldiers in exoskeletons piled out. One of them approached the Bus. "Corporal Carlos Wrzniewski," he said, "you have orders to come with us."

"Haven't taken orders in a long time," Carlos said. "Wouldn't have thought I was past that."

"You know better, Corporal. In a state of national emergence, any and all past or present Defense Force personnel can be placed on active duty. And, frankly, you seem to be the one person able to deal with the situation. An order was issued to locate you almost 24 hours ago. If you had stayed at your homestead, you would already have been picked up."

Carlos waved at the children. "Would they?" he said. The officer gave no answer, which was answer enough. "So what exactly do they think they need me for?"

"Engagements with the- infected have gone poorly," the officer said guardedly. "The tactics recommended in your original reports don't work consistently. There have been significant failures in containment."

"If you paid attention to my bloody report," Carlos responded sardonically, "you would know that you need to shoot at the base of the skull. Or sever the spine, or just torch them. And you have to screen survivors for bites. If they have them, it's likely, maybe certain, they'll turn. That, I'll admit, is new. Now, either you can help me move these kids, or you can bloody well get out of my way." The officer turned aside, muttering audibly but not intelligibly into a mouth piece.

Turning back, he said, "All right, I have authorization to pick up as many civilians as the chopper will carry, provided you come with them, and leave two of my men- the drone too, if you left it in one piece- to escort the rest to Hart's Range. That takes care of ten of your charges."

"Where do we go?"

"Katherine." Under Carlos' stern gaze, he added, "Hart's Range is being converted into an aid station. They _will _be safe there."

"Safer than Barrow was?"

"The Barrow site is being evacuated, but it's still functional as we speak," the officer said. "The Hart's Range station is set up to receive the civilians from there. And, civilians are being allowed to drive east from there as soon as they are screened." Carlos nodded, though he continued to scowl. Jonny had no trouble recognizing his thought: The officer was almost certainly putting an overly positive spin on events, but his account of the bare facts could be trusted.

Carlos spoke: "Here's my final offer: You take the women and kids in those two other vehicles. I drive the rest of the way to Hart's Range, and fly out of there as soon as those with me are evacuated."

After more muttering, the officer said, "Command accepts." Colleen, Esther and their passengers boarded the helicopter, and the empty vehicles parked beside the road. Before reboarding, the officer told Carlos, "I'm not authorized to tell you this, but you probably saved half the territory yesterday." Carlos watched the helicopter until it disappeared. To north and west, there was a flash just below the curve of the horizon, about where Barrow would be.

They reached Hart's Range just after dawn. They found a scene of chaos. The small roadside town had expanded into a tent city worthy of a large army. The number of itinerants could not be less than 5,000. Cars could be seen driving east, but for every one that went through, ten backed up behind. The visible military presence had been reduced to a single squad, divided between the entrance and exit of the town, plus a second squad gathered around a single helicopter clearly prepped to leave. A few more were presumably in the screening tents, from which short bursts of gunfire could be heard at regular intervals.

At the sight of the approaching Bus, the soldiers around the helicopter shouted and pointed, and two ran up the road. Carlos stopped 100 m short of the station gate. "Get out, kids," he said. "Run to those soldiers. They'll take care of you. You too, Jonny. Leave the tablet."

The children complied, mostly in silence. Jonny got off first, and the others gathered around him. Tommy cried and clung to his seat. Billy had to pry him away and carry him. The elder brother looked back, with tears in his eyes. "What about you, Carlos?"

Carlos stared at a mass of strangely dim figures marching down the road from the west. "I'm taking a little detour," he said. Then, just as the soldiers arrived, he turned off the road. He circled the town and surrounding tents, heedless of the guards who shouted from the fence. He raced past the gridlocked refugees, who gaped in disbelief at the one men who was going the other way. Finally, he pulled onto the paved road and redoubled his speed, racing toward the doom of all men.

Soldiers tried to follow, but were swallowed in the crowds of refugees. The children were herded onto the helipad. Jonny took Tommy on his shoulders, and it was perhaps only Tommy who saw the end: How the bus stopped at the edge of the throng, then was enveloped by it, while shot after feeble shot rang out. How it suddenly lurched back to life, plowing through the dark crowd, actually gaining speed, going faster and faster.

But Tommy buried his head in the teenager's shoulders then. Thus, only he failed to see the explosion.

The desert of central Australia is one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth. But not so long ago, men who thought they could tame it built ranches and mines, towns and cities here. Most are gone now, even of the blackfellows. Of those who remain, most are growing old. All are strangely timid. They live with the desert, without trying to change it, as if striving to appease it after the uncanny plague that once came forth to destroy them.

The works of men have fared little better than the men themselves. For every house where men still dwell, two lie empty. The roads have grown poor, save for those which are essential to cross the wastes, and none are poorer than the Sandover Track, whose length can scarcely be traced, let alone traversed. But, where the old track enters Hart's Range, a statue still stands of an old blackfellow whom it is said saved their town at the cost of his own life. Sometimes, the blackfellows who still live by the old ways, few but no longer twindling, stop from their tracks in the wastes to leave a sign or gift in the dust in honor of their kin. Also seen often is a man who still gives his name as Tommy, who if given the chance will argue that the man's fate is not certain, that perhaps it was a computer linked to the dashboard which drove the Bus deeper and deeper into the undead throng, while he just perhaps fought his way clear. And if one listens long enough, he may well tell that, after the desert blackfellows visit, a man eerily like the statue is sometimes seen stooped before it in the darkest night, with something resembling a dog by his side.

All the townspeople work to make sure the statue stays whole and polished and pristine. And they must take special care to trim the vibrant green foliage which sprouts in unaccountable profusion every spring, so that it does not envelope the statue of their savior.

Perhaps the rocks do more than remember...


End file.
